The US Arms Both
Sides of Mexico's Drug War

By Lora Lumpe

Covert Action Quarterly, Summer 1997, Number 61, pp. 39-46.

Mexican narcotraffickers and
other criminals easily obtain their firepower north of the border.
Effectively reducing the flow of illegal arms would mean tightening
laws on gun sales and ownership in the US. Instead, the Clinton
administration increasingly militarizes Mexico's drug war, by
providing more weapons aid and encouraging the military to become
more involved.

On March 14, when federal agents opened
two crates in a "left cargo" hold at the Otay Mesa
border crossing near San Diego, California, they uncovered the
largest illegal shipment of arms ever intercepted in the United
States en route to Mexico. The weapons-thousands of unassembled
grenade launchers and parts for M2 automatic rifles-had been
sitting unclaimed for two months. The discovery was a PR godsend
for the Mexican government, following as it did on the heels
of an embarrassing disclosure in

February that Mexico's top drug enforcement
official was on the take from narcos, and a messy skirmish
between the White House and Congress about whether to "certify"
Mexico as acting in good faith to counter drug trafficking. Mexico
City quickly used news of the weapons cache to turn the spotlight
away from its drug scandals and focus it on America's gun problem.
No doubt stung by daily criticism from Washington, Mexican officials
were less than diplomatic: We're simply not satisfied" with
US efforts to stem the flow of arms into Mexico, said Marco Provencio,
assistant undersecretary of foreign relations.1 The
Mexican ambassador to Washington, Jesus Silva-Herzog, complained,
When we talk about drugs they say it [the problem] is supply,
and when we bring up alms they respond that it's the demand.
In other words, we can never win."2

Let's Outlaw Illegal Guns

It was not the first time Mexico had protested
the flow of weapons. For several years now, that government has
pointed out that Mexican drug cartels (and other criminals) are
getting their arms north of the border; for several years, Mexico
City has asked that Washington take effective steps to address
this issue.

Washington has responded in several ways.
First, successive administrations have downplayed Mexican concerns
or labeled them as disingenuous--simply an effort to deflect
attention from Mexico's official corruption and inept war on
drugs.

More recently, the Clinton administration
has seemingly acknowledged the link between the gray and black
arms markets and narcotrafficking, at least rhetorically. In
his keynote speech before the 50th UN General Assembly, for example,
President Clinton focused on the global threat posed by terrorism,
organized crime, and drug trafficking. 4Noone is immune, not
the people of Latin America or Southeast Asia, where drug traffickers
wielding imported weapons have murdered judges, journalists,
police officers and innocent passersby," said the president.
Citing the facility with which these groups obtain the weapons
needed for their operations, Clinton urged states to work with
Washington "to shut down the gray markets that outfit terrorists
and criminals with firearms.

In addition, over the last year, Mexican
police and US agents have stepped up cooperation, communication
and intelligence-sharing on gunrunning and on tracing weapons
used in crime. And, at their summit in early May, Presidents
Clinton and Zedillo redundantly agreed to Outlaw the trafficking
in illegal arms."3

Fighting Fire with Firepower

It's easy for the Clinton administration
to oppose illicit arms trafficking in principle; it's a motherhood
issue. But missing from the speechifying is any mention of the
US role as a one-stop shop for drug runners' guns--or concrete
steps likely to staunch the flow of arms. Given that America's
loose gun sale and gun ownership laws facilitate the vast majority
of weapons smuggled across the border, the willingness of the
administration to take effective action is far from clear. Domestic
gun control-considered too politically sensitive, even in the
context of the alleged threat to national security posed by drug
trafficking--is not part of the discussion.4

Instead, the administration has concentrated
on providing the Mexican military with firepower sufficient to
counter that of the drug bandits. The relationship between the
two militaries has warmed dramatically in the past year, following
a visit by Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the White House drug policy
director, to Mexico in March 1996. His meeting smoothed the way
for an agreement between the two governments which has resulted
in Mexican soldier straining at Fort Bragg and other US bases,
and in the gift of 73 Surplus "helicopters, night vision
goggles, radios and other military equipment. In addition, the
White House has requested $9million in military aid for Mexico
for fiscal year 1998 (up from $3 million in fiscal year 1996)
for the purchase of new weapons from US arms manufacturers.5

More Firepower

The links between arms and drug trafficking
make the problem worse. Drug authorities estimate that up to
three-quarters of the cocaine entering the United States now
comes through Mexico, as do tons of marijuana annually. Mexican
narcotraffickers are believed to take in as much as$30 billion
per year for their role in this traded In March1996, Thomas Constantine,
the chief of the US Drug Enforcement Administration testified
that the Mexican drug cartels were so wealthy and powerful that
they now rival the government for influence and control in many
regions.

Increasingly, the narcos are outgunning
Mexican drug agents. Drug traffickers killed more than 200 police
last year alone.7 The Border Patrol reported 24armed
encounters and assaults on agents in its Del Rio sector during
the first eight months of 1996, including a January shootout
with a Mexican drug trafficker near Eagle's Pass, Texas in which
a Border Patrol agent was killed. There were eight armed encounters
during the same time period in1995.8 According to a Mexican official,
The firepower of the narco-traffickers so superior to that of
the federal agents that they [the narcos]have become increasingly
brazen. These people are getting their weapons from the US. That
doesn't mean necessarily that they are American weapons, but
... one issue that can help is lowering the access to these weapons."9

Not just the police are coming under fire.
Thousands of Mexican citizens are getting caught in the crossfire.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control, Mexico has one
of the highest firearm homicide rates in the world, about 10
for every 100,000 people. (The rate for the United States is
7 per100,000 people.)10 In addition, there has been
a spate of recent high-profile political and narco-assassinations,
many of them carried out with guns purchased illegally in the
US. In 1993, the Cardinal of Guadalajara, Jose Posadas Ocampo,
was gunned down in a drug-gang shootout with a weapon smuggled
across the US border. A year later, PRI presidential candidate
Luis Donaldo Colosio was assassinated in Tijuana with a .38-caliber
Taurus pistol also purchased illegally north of the border. Just
months after Colosio's murder, Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, the
secretary general of the ruling PRI, was shot and killed. This
past January, Hodin Armando Gutierrez Rico, a former special
prosecutor on the Colosio case for the Attorney General's office,
was cut down in a hail of bullets in front of his Tijuana home.
Police found more than 130 AK-47 assault rifle shells and 9mm
bullet casings. Five officials linked to the Colosio investigation
have now been assassinated.

Gun seizures by Mexican officials have
increased dramatically in recent years, but it is difficult to
know whether this is because of absolute increases in numbers
of weapons in Mexico, or to improved efficiency on the part of
the authorities. Road checkpoints have turned up large quantities
of drugs, arms, and other smuggled goods.11

Mexican police seized 16,000 pistols and
6,000 shotguns, mostly from drug gangs in 1994-95, and more than
7,200illegal weapons in 1995 in non-drug related crimes (up from
28 in 1992).12 Last October, Mexican officials asked
The White House has requested$9 million in military aid for Mexico
for the purchase of new weapons from US arms manufacturers.the
US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) to trace the
origin of nearly 4,300 side arms and semiautomatic and automatic
rifles confiscated from drug-related crime scenes.13
Since then, Mexico has submitted 1,500 additional trace requests.14

In August 1994, just months before his
brother fell to an assassin's bullet, Deputy Attorney General
Mario Ruiz Massieu (now in jail in the US, awaiting trial on
drug-related charges), said, "We track the dealer and determine
from where the shipment originates. [The guns] generally originate
from US citizens and end up most of the time in the hands of
gangsters, thieves, and other criminals, rather than organizations
such as the Zapatista National Liberation Army." Situated
in the southern part of the country, Mexico's leftist rebel armies
appear to be getting their arms principally from enormous stores
left over from the Central American wars of the 1980s. Many of
those arms were, of course, supplied by Washington, too, either
through massive military aid programs or as part of covert government
operations. According to a report by the attorney general's office
last fall, arms from north of the border are mainly being used
in street crimes, such as holdups, kidnappings, and murders.15

The Profit Motive

Proximity, liberal gun sales laws, and
inadequate law enforcement have made the US Mexico's leading
source of black market arms-despite Mexico's own strict gun control
policy. Mexican law bars civilian ownership of any gun larger
than .22-caliber; requires a permit before purchase; mandates
the registration of firearms with the Ministry of Defense; and
bans carrying weapons in public. Although Mexico has produced
military-style assault rifles under license from European gun
manufacturers, it does not make or sell weapons approved for
the general population.

Just over the border, however, regulation
is loose and manufacture of guns is big business. In 1990 alone,
civilian firearms sales amounted to a staggering $2.1 billion,
with wholesale ammunition sales of $491 million in 1992.16
There are an estimated 250 million firearms circulating, and
over 245,000 federally licensed firearms dealers selling guns
to the general public. Ten percent of these (24,567) licensed
gun sellers are in the four states bordering Mexico, and more
than 6,000 sit along the border between the two countries.17
While it is illegal in the US for any person or company to export
or conspire to export a weapon without obtaining a license from
the government (either the Commerce or State Department, depending
on the type of weapon), the US is a major source of small arms
and light weapons for illicit buyers around the world.

Of the five or six million firearms purchased
annually in the US by private buyers, a certain percentage is
acquired by middlemen working on behalf of arms traffickers who
smuggle them across the US-Mexican border in violation of both
countries' laws and regulations.

Many of the arms used by Mexico's insurgencies
were supplied by Washington either through massive military aid
programs or as part of US covert operations that left enormous
arsenals behind.

Gun trafficking entails significant risk
of punishment for those caught, but rewards those who succeed
with big, or at least relatively easy, money. The going rate
to smuggle one gun into Mexico is reportedly about $10018,
and annual reports by the BATF'S International Traffic in Arms
program indicate that the task is not overly difficult. In 1994,
foreign governments reported 6,238 unlawfully acquired US-origin
firearms to the BATF. Over half--3, 376--were discovered in Mexico.l9
The chances of being prosecuted for arms trafficking on the north
side of the border appear pretty low. Despite the enormous quantities
of US-origin guns illegally circulating in Mexico, a US Department
of Justice (DoJ) document listing "Significant Export Control
Cases" from January 1981 to June 1995 shows that, in this
15-year span, the DoJ prosecuted only two cases. One, in 1989,
involved a conspiracy to export 190 AK-47 assault weapons and
a large quantity of ammunition, and the other concerned a conspiracy
to purchase and export a large quantity of weapons, including
M-16 rifles, grenades, and antitank rockets, for use by drug
traffickers in Mexico in 1990.20 Mexico's Firearms
and Explosives Act stipulates harsh penalties for crimes connected
with the possession and use of all types of weapons, as well
as their illicit trade.

Shipping Through Customs

Gunrunners, like their product, come in
all calibers. Some are free-lance petty criminals looking for
a quick buck. But much of the traffic is just one part of large-scale
organized criminal operations. According to a report last fall
by the Office of the Attorney General of Mexico, gunrunning is
the third richest source of profit for organized crime in Mexico,
after drug trafficking and robbery/extortion. The report states
that no criminal group has been found to be "strictly and
exclusively dedicated to arms trafficking" but, rather,
that drug trafficking organizations are running guns through
the routes to/from the US under their control. It cites flourishing
gun/drug routes along the Pacific coast, the Gulf coast, and
Central Baja and adds that a "significant" amount of
arms trafficking originates out of central Florida, crossing
through the Caribbean and entering Mexico through the Yucatan
Peninsula. The narcos generally traffic in AK-47, AR-15, and
M-1assault rifles.21

Large and well-organized arms shipments
like that uncovered near San Diego in March are thought to be
unusual, but no one really knows, since understanding of black
market gunrunning is based largely on transactions that have
failed. In this cases several months before their Otay Mesa discovery,
the weapons had entered the US through the port of Long Beach,
California, in two large, sealed containers. The shipment originated
in Vietnam, where America, as part of its war legacy, had left
behind large quantities of weapons, including M-2 automatic rifles.22
Before the arms returned home, they were well-traveled, having
gone from Ho Chi Minh City to Singapore to Bremerhaven, Germany,
through the Panama Canal and up to Long Beach.23

The contents of the containers were falsely
represented as hand tools and strap hangers. US Customs at Long
Beach did not inspect the, cargo since the shipment was "in-bond"--that
is, the items were simply transiting the US enroute to another
country, in this instance Mexico. In such cases, cargo containers
typically remain sealed as they moved from ship to truck to border.
According to a Customs source, "in the normal course of
business, no one Canal and up to Long Bach. would have ever opened
them. [The arms] were discovered through a fluke."24
(The shipment was held up at the border because the Mexican freight
forwarder commissioned to get the crates to Mexico City did not
have an address for the purchaser.) The in-bond system is built
on trust, and on the Customs Service's lack of resources. Customs
has fewer than 135 inspectors at the port of Long Beach, the
nation's busiest port, to sift daily through the equivalent of
8,400 20-footcargo containers.25

The Trail of Ants

The most routine way of smuggling arms,
however, is the hormiga (ant) run: repeated trips across
the border with one or a few guns. A legally eligible or "straw"
purchaser buys a few weapons (often cheap.22- and .25-caliber
pistols,"38 specials," and 9mm pistols) from gun stores
in El Paso and other US border towns and hands the mover to the
trafficker, who sneaks them across the border, generally either
on foot or in the trunk of a car. A smuggler can repeat this
process hundreds of times a year, making multiple trips to gun
stores in Florida, Texas, and California, in particular.

Some legal constraints are now in place,
but lack of investigative and regulatory resources reduces their
efficacy. The Brady Bill" mandates a five-day waiting period,
and a recently enacted rule requires purchasers to show that
they have lived for at least three months in the state where
they are buying a gun. In addition, the Firearms Owners Protection
Act of1986 (sponsored by the NRA) requires that multiple sales
be reported to the BATF and local law enforcement agencies, so
that they can monitor multiple gun purchases and investigate
if they suspect criminal intent. But currently only three states--Virginia,
Maryland, and South Carolina--have laws that prevent people from
buying more than one gun a month. In all other states, straw
purchasers can buy significant quantities of guns and ammunition
from gun dealers at one time and pass them on to smugglers for
clandestine shipment. A 1991 BATF report describes a number of
such transactions, including a 1989 case in which three Arizona
residents purchased 93 assault rifles and 22 handguns for a well-known
Mexican narcotics trafficker, who then transported them into
Mexico.26

44 CAQ SUMMER 1997

And once the guns are acquired in the US,
there is little to keep them from crossing the 2,000-mile-long
border. Because Mexican border officials have a general policy
of not checking people who enter on foot, many Mexican smugglers
hide guns in suitcases, backpacks, or Ruffle. Gunrunners who
drive across conceal weapons under seats or inside false compartments.
Although border police run random spot checks of cars coming
south, these traffickers run relatively little risk. Firearms
are also smuggled on commercial flights. According to a US Customs
survey conducted at the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX),
gunrunners often wrap the firearms in foil and then put the min
their checked baggage. Smugglers also hide weapons in television
sets or other electronic components and ship them either as air
freight or as personal luggage. In 1989, US Customs officers
recovered 463 firearms at LAX.27 It can probably be
assumed that many more guns escaped detection there and at other
US airports.

Where the Guns Are

Willie Sutton explained, when asked why
he robbed banks, "because that's where the money is."
In that spirit, many gunrunners go to military and police facilities
on both sides of the border to get arms. In 1993, the General
Accounting Office (GAO) found that small arms parts were routinely
stolen from a number of military repair shops and warehouses.
The hot parts were then sold to gun dealers or to walk-in customers
at gun shows around the US.GAO investigators were able to purchase
military small arms parts at 13 of 15 gun shows they visited.
They were able to buy everything needed to convert a semiautomatic
AR-15 rifle into a fully automatic M-16, as well as 30 round
M-16 magazine clips still in their original packages.28
Some of these arms undoubtedly end up south of the border.

In Mexico, narcotraffickers and other criminals
probably also get a substantial amount of US arms from Mexican
police and military depots, either through theft or purchases
from corrupt state servants. In 1991, the Pentagon gave Mexico
nearly 50,000 M-1 rifle carbines,29 and during 1989-93,
the State Department approved 108 licenses for the export of
more than $34 million of small arms to Mexico. The Department
performed only three follow-up inspections to ensure non-diversion
of these arms.30 During 1991-93,the Commerce Department
approved an additional 34 licenses for the export of over $3
million of shotguns andshells.31 End use checks are
even rarer on Commerce-licensed arms.

Supply and Demand, American Style

Shutting down an illicit market is, of
course, difficult: Reducing supply, with out also reducing demand,
might simply make the market more lucrative and encourage more
people to enter it. Nevertheless, there is much that the US could
do to make it more difficult for Mexican and other criminals
to obtain firearms in America. The Brady Bills(requiring a five-day
waiting period and criminal check prior to gun sales) and the
current ban on sales of assault rifles have complicated business
for gunrunners. A national law limiting customers to one handgun
purchase per month would, according to BATF findings, help curb
the multiple-gun straw purchases that often end up on the black
market. There is also a need to increase resources for Customs
intelligence and inspections, and for the State Department and
Customs Service to undertake more frequent "end use"
inspections to ensure that legally transferred small and light
arms are not diverted.

All of these steps address supply, but
ignore the root causes of the tremendous demand for lethal firepower.
Crime, and related gun use, among small-time criminals is often
fueled by desperate social conditions-lack of jobs, hopelessness,
and poverty. In Mexico, every year 158,000 babies die before
5 years of age because of nutritionally related disease. With
the country gripped in its worst recession since 1932, as many
as 40 percent of all Mexicans suffer from some degree of under
nutrition. A report by the nation's top private bank, Banamex,
found that as a result of the economic crisis, half of Mexico's
92 million people get less than the 1,300 minimum daily requirement
of calories.32 Not unexpectedly, the crime rate in
Mexico has soared since the collapse of the national economy
in 1995, with an average of 543 crimes per day reported in Mexico
City.33 And organized crime, the biggest traffickers
and consumers of illicit weapons, thrives on the drug trade.

Meanwhile, gathering information on gun
violence and gun ownership laws within the hemisphere is an important
step (see p. 43), as are devising common export guidelines and
enhancing Customs surveillance and cooperation. But as long as
the United States has by far the most permissive gun sales policies
in the hemisphere, it will continue to supply drug-runners and
criminals of all stripes.

18. A Mexican lawyer ordered an illegal
12-gaugePerazzifrom a Laredo, Texas gem dealer and paid an American
$100 to smuggle it into Mexico. (ibid.)

l9. Other countries reporting a significant
number of confiscated US origin firearms included Colombia(604),
Jamaica (210), and Canada(167). US Department of the Treasury
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, ITAR International
Traffic in Arms (Washington, D.C.: BATF, 1994), Annual Report
for FY 1993, p. 22.

20. US Department of Justice," Significant
Export Control Cases, January1981 to May 31,1995," obtained
under the Freedom of Information Act by the Federation of American
Scientists.

21. La Jornada, Sept. 27, 1996,
as translated and published in FBIS-TDD-96-029-L.

22. The M-2 is a World War II-era rifle,
identical to the M-l which is used by the Mexican police, except
that it has a small selector switch that converts it into a fully
automatic weapon.

23.Valerie Alvord, "Illegal Weapons
Were Well Traveled," San Diego Union-Tribune, March
21, 1997.

The problem of the proliferation of illicit
arms is drawing fire from numerous international regulatory bodies.
International police and customs entities (Interpol, the World
Customs Organization, Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission
of the Organization of American States) have recently undertaken
useful initiatives to gather data, educate policymakers and find
consensus on steps that can be taken to regulate firearms and
curb illicit trafficking. The US has been participating in all
of these efforts, and apparently welcomes them.

The United Nations has also become concerned
with the impact of small arms and light weapons on the maintenance
of peace. In September 1995, the secretary-general called for
direct action To deal with the flourishing illicit traffic in
light weapons, which is destabilizing the security of a number
of countries." In December of that year, the General Assembly
established a panel of experts to study the matter (the UN's
idea of direct action). The panel will make its final report
in June and is expected to call for greater self-restraint and
information-sharing in exports of such weapons.

Also in 1995, the UN Economic and Social
Council(ECOSOC) undertook a study of Firearms regulation for
the purposes of crime prevention and public safety." In
March1997, the secretary-general issued a report with the phrase"
measures to regulate firearms'' in the title. Needless to say,
the National Rifle Association (NRA) is sweating. In fact, in
late 1996 the gun association applied for and was accredited
as an officially recognized "non-governmental organization"
with the UN, precisely so that it could keep closer tabs on and
influence the UN's efforts. In a statement prepared for a May
ECOSOC commission on crime prevention, the NRA complained that
the "current orientation of these [UN] efforts regarding
firearms regulation is dissipating energy and effort from more
pressing and relevant problems, i.e., illegal arms smuggling
as it relates to criminal activity and terrorism." When
asked specifically what the NRA proposes to do about gun-smuggling,
a spokesman said he didn't know what legislation could be passed
to curb the problem, given that criminals break the law. "That's
what criminals do."1

The Organization of American States (OAS)
is involved in two efforts to tackle the illicit arms traffic
in the hemisphere. The Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission
(CICIAD) provides assistance to OAS member states on supply and
demand reduction, legal development, institution-building, and
information exchange. As part of its legal development program,
CICAD is drafting model regulations to standardize and Then appropriate,
periodically revise laws, regulations, administrative procedures
and the means of applying them in order to eliminate the illicit
manufacturing and trafficking in firearms, ammunition, explosives
and other related material."2 The model regulations
should be completed this summer. In a second and more recent
initiative, the OAS is drafting a convention against the illicit
manufacturing and trafficking of firearms, ammunition, explosives,
and other related material. The proposed treaty originated with
the Mexican government, and the current draft calls on states
to adopt legal or other measures necessary to "prevent,
combat or eradicate "the illicit production and transfer
of firearms and ammunition. According to Carlos Rico Ferr at
of the Mexican Foreign Relations Secretariat, the OAS draft convention
will develop a consensus about what kinds of arms are to be considered
illegal for international trade, and set rules for notification
of arms shipments for both sending and receiving countries, including
an annual assessment of efforts by each state party on progress
in curtailing illicit arms trafficking. According to another
official, "At this point the exercise is about enhancing
the capability of countries to track the issue. More stringent
gun control laws in the US are not on the table right now."
--LL